The Ratio Of Elderly To Working-age Adults Is More Than A Number. It I

The ratio of elderly to working-age adults is more than a number. It is also the fuel for political debate over federal entitlement programs for the elderly and a key to understanding consumer demand in any market. Nationally, the ratio will begin to grow rapidly when the oldest baby boomers reach age 65 in 2010, and this has dire implications for Social Security. But the boomers' retirement won't turn every city into Sun City. Aging will be dramatic in places with few children, but some of today's retirement zones will get younger. Aspen, CO (Pitkin County, 1996 population 14,160) has only 6 elderly residents per 100 workers, compared with a national average of 27 per 100. This ultra-affluent resort also has just 22 children per 100 workers, compared with a national average of 47 per 100. If Aspen's boomers stay in town, the county's lack of children could cause its old-age dependency ratio to increase more than fivefold by 2020. Nationally, the ratio is projected to increase about 42 percent, according to Woods & Poole Economics. Military bases also have relatively few elderly residents. The lowest elderly-to-worker ratio in the country is in Fort Benning, GA (Chattahoochee County, pop. 15,600), with just 3 elderly per 100 workers. While that ratio could reach 12 per 100 in 2020, Fort Benning will still seem young compared with a projected national ratio of 37 per 100. In many Florida retirement counties, today's elderly-to-worker ratio exceeds the projected national ratio for 2020. The oldest county is Highlands, FL (pop. 74,850), with 73 retirees per 100 workers in 1996. And if northern snowbirds keep flocking to the wide-open palmetto prairies of Flagler County (pop. 40,480), the ratio could increase from 51 per 100 now to 117 per 100 in 2020. But most of Florida's major metros won't see such dramatic change. And in a few places, such as Fort Lauderdale (Broward County, pop. 1,441,780), workers may gain ground as young Hispanics and other migrants overwhelm a fixed population of retirees. The population in more than 150 counties could get younger as America ages. This isn't always good economic news: the Great Plains has been losing workers for decades, and counties like Osborne, KS (pop. 4,600) are dominated by elderly natives who are "aging in place." As this generation passes away, places like Osborne could become younger, smaller, and poorer. There are rural counties with lots of children, such as Mormon-dominated Beaver County, UT (pop. 5,210). And suburban behemoths like Riverside County, CA (pop. 1,406,440) will stay young if they remain attractive to working families. The ratio of elderly to working-age adults is a crude measure of economic dependency, because some people work past age 65 while others aged 18 to 64 are not in the labor force. An increase in this ratio won't necessarily bring economic ruin, either. Social Security could be saved by a combination of political reform, boomers delaying their retirement, and a rapid increase in the economic output of workers. Children will also consume less of society's resources, because the ratio of children to working-age adults is projected to decline 11 percent between 1996 and 2020. What is certain for many markets is a massive shift in focus toward the concerns of aging. To see the future of Colorado, look at Florida. As boomers age, the diversity of this large group grows increasingly clear. "People talk about the 78 million boomers as though somehow they came out of the chute at the same time," says David B. Wolfe, an author and consultant based in Reston, Virginia. The boomer term is "mostly meaningless," he adds. Deciphering the factors that determine boomer behavior can help businesses predict what this group will want and need in the future. This year, the nation's 78 million boomers are aged 31 to 49. As a result, they are much more likely than either younger or older adults to have dependent children at home. Despite delayed marriage and high divorce rates, boomers these days are most likely to be part of a married-couple family. Even among the youngest boomers, nearly two-thirds are currently married. Sixty-two percent of adults aged 30 to 44 have children under age 18 at home, compared with 37 percent of those

A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases

A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases By Mark Nichol When it comes to following grammatical rules by example, the field is a minefield, because many publishers and publications can’t even seem to get it right, and writers must resort to hunting down the correct usage in a style guide or a writing handbook. Take, for instance, phrases of several words in which hyphenation seems to be called for. Is it â€Å"word of mouth,† or â€Å"word-of-mouth†? Do you write â€Å"on the spot,† or â€Å"on-the-spot†? The quick-and-easy answer is, for these and most other apparent word chains, break those chains: No hyphens are necessary unless the phrase precedes a noun: â€Å"I rely on word-of-mouth communication†; â€Å"She made an on-the-spot assessment.† But the game changes for a special class of phrase that, for lack of standard nomenclature, we can call anatomical association: When your dorsal side is opposite someone else’s, you’re standing back-to-back, and when you confront someone, you go head-to-head. This type of phrase is sometimes hyphenated in adverbial form (used in conjunction with a verb) as well as in adjectival form (preceding or following a noun): â€Å"He produced back-to-back hits throughout the decade.† â€Å"She hoped to a avoid a head-to-head confrontation.† Unfortunately, though, even that classification is inconsistent: When you line up among a row of people to your left and right, you’re positioned side by side, not side-by-side. (Though you still hyphenate the adjectival form you stand in a side-by-side formation.) You can live a hand-to-mouth existence, but you’re living hand to mouth, not hand-to-mouth. Some similar phrases, such as â€Å"head to toe† or â€Å"hand in hand,† aren’t even in the dictionary, so the same rule applies; leave open in adverbial form, and hyphenate as an adjective. (Phrasal adjectives usually remain open after a noun, but these aren’t conducive to that syntax anyway.) This maddening inconsistency leaves us where we started: When in doubt, look it up. And what about even longer word strings? You can write that someone has a devil-may-care attitude, and that someone has a not-in-my-backyard mentality, but where do you draw the line and stop drawing that little line we call a hyphen? What if someone has a do-unto-others-before-someone-does-unto-you approach to life? Many such phrases are enclosed in quotation marks rather than hyphenated, which is reasonable for something that would conceivably be uttered and doesn’t play havoc with narrow columns of type (as it may very well have done here). But phrases of manageable length like â€Å"not in my backyard,† even though they’re hypothetical statements, should remain in phrasal-adjective mode. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How to Format a US Business LetterHow to Punctuate Descriptions of ColorsDouble Possessive